


Coffee and Flower Crowns

by Sleigh



Category: Lux-Pain
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Ficlet Collection, Gen, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:39:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleigh/pseuds/Sleigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short Lux Pain fics taking place in an art school AU, where Atsuki first meets and befriends the Kisaragi kids during their first year of college.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> (special thanks to everyone who has supported and/or encouraged my stupid ramblings about this AU for the last five months ♥)

Atsuki couldn’t place what exactly it was, but there was something relaxing about developing film by himself. It made him think enough to not fall asleep but it wasn’t so difficult that it was tiring. He’d done it so often by the time he started college that it was as effortless for him as breathing.

He no longer fumbled around with film reels and canisters for ages like he had in the past. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d dropped the canister and had to search around in the dark for it. Slipping the film onto the reel was effortless, and so was measuring out and pouring all the chemicals he needed.

In high school, Atsuki hadn’t needed to go out of his way to make sure he was alone. The dark room was desolate most of the year. No classes required students to use it anymore so the only other people he ran into there were journalism students looking for extra credit.

In college, Atsuki had to go out of his way. Film still wasn’t popular, but it was used enough for assignments that there was usually someone hanging around it at the more convenient hours of the day.  He usually ended up there around eleven or twelve at night when the entire building was empty and he could experiment with his film as much as he wanted without anyone else being in the way.

There was an old CD player in the room, held together with duct tape and covered in faded stickers, but it was still functional. He always stuck some mix he’d made back in high school in it, on a silver CD with a 5 written on it in red sharpie. He couldn’t remember what he’d made it for in the first place, but it worked well enough as background music. Another bonus of working alone was that nobody could complain about his music.

Atsuki was never in any rush, even when he probably should have been since he had class the next morning. He’d make the same print over and over again, making slight changes to the aperture or the timing. Then he’d experiment more with the chemicals, leaving the print in the developer a little longer sometimes, then realizing he left it in too long, tossing the print in the trash, and trying again.

He couldn’t completely lose track of time since he was constantly checking the clock on the wall to keep the prints in the chemicals for just the right amount of time. He could also tell when 152 minutes had passed because that’s when the CD started repeating itself. He usually didn’t leave until he got so tired he started accidentally letting wet prints slip out of his fingers onto the floor. Sometimes, he left after he accidentally put the little plastic tongs for the stop bath into the tub of fixer.

When he walked back to his dorm the first night he’d spent in the dark room, it was significantly colder out than it had been when he left that evening. It was somewhere around midnight; he hadn’t stayed out too long and had only been making prints of the same photo over and over to test out the school’s equipment.

Atsuki wished he would’ve worn a heavier coat. He had a long walk across campus with only a light jacket on and the pockets were too shallow for him to comfortably shove his cold hands into. He didn’t see anyone else around as he walked, but he kept thinking about all the times they’d been told at freshman orientation to only travel in groups at night. He remembered a senior talking about someone being murdered on campus once while walking alone at night. He remembered thinking she was just lying to scare them, but now he was getting a bit concerned.

He still didn’t see anyone around when he reached one of the streets he needed to cross to get back to his dorm. He pushed the crosswalk button at the bottom of the streetlight with one finger, then stuffed his hands in his pockets anyway. He was too cold to care about being comfortable.

He stood for a moment and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, watching his breath come out in puffs in front of him. He watched a few more cars pass by. He heard the button on the streetlight click again.

Atsuki hadn’t noticed someone walk up beside him. He didn’t know if it was because he was too distracted or if it was just because he needed sleep or maybe both. Luckily he only tensed up instead of panicking. He glanced over at the person beside him in a way he hoped seemed more casual than suspicious.

Atsuki didn’t recognize the man beside him. He was a bit taller and probably a bit older than him, with dark hair. He was probably a student. He noticed right away that Atsuki was looking at him and looked back, but Atsuki didn’t look away.

“…You have paint on your face,” Atsuki commented, lifting a hand from his pocket and pointing to his own cheek, “Right here.”

The other student lifted his own hand and smeared the light blue paint off onto the back of his hand. He looked at it on his hand for just a moment before looking back at the street. “Thanks,” he told Atsuki before he headed off across the street.

It took Atsuki a moment to realize he could cross the street now, but he blamed that on the lack of sleep.  The other student went the opposite way that Atsuki needed to go after he crossed the street, but Atsuki didn’t let himself look back and see where he was going.

He didn’t run into anyone else on his way back to his room. The only person he saw was his roommate, still wide awake and leaning halfway over his desk, typing something frantically on his laptop.

“Don’t you have class at 8?” Atsuki asked him as he tossed his jacket on his bed, but Shinji was too busy with whatever he was doing to answer. This was the third night in a row that Shinji had been up late, and Atsuki wondered if it was also his third night in a row skipping every meal and eating nothing but chips from the candy machine the next floor down. Atsuki didn’t bother asking.

The light from Shinji’s laptop made it hard for Atsuki to fall asleep, and he kept thinking about that kind of scary guy he met at the crosswalk. He kept thinking about his classes the next morning and about assignments he still needed to work on. He thought of Shinji’s friends from his hometown that he’d only met twice but wanted to try to be friends with. He thought about how he could’ve been murdered that night and how lame that would’ve been. He had so much on his mind he didn’t think he’d be able to fall asleep, but he was waking up the next morning before he knew it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please don't expect big things from this because you'll be disappointed  
> it's just going to be me turning stupid little ideas I've had for an AU like this into little flash fics every once in a while  
> ps I'm really bad at titling things omg


	2. Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atsuki takes pictures of freshly fallen snow and runs into someone.

When Atsuki woke up one morning, the window in his and Shinji’s dorm was covered in cracked frost. It branched out across the window like jagged veins made of tiny icy snowflakes, crawling up the window almost all the way to the top. He climbed out of his toasty bed and went up to the window to take pictures of it. The shutter sounded louder than usual in the silent room, but Shinji was so tired that it wasn’t enough to wake him up.

Outside, snow and ice coated the trees and the powerlines, the ledges of windows, every rooftop, every trash can, every light post. Atsuki pulled on some snowboots and his coat, wrapped his scarf around his neck and put on a pair of fingerless gloves. He grabbed his camera and a few different lenses and left his dorm.

He didn’t see anyone on his way down the hall and down the stairs. It was seven in the morning and classes were cancelled because of the weather. Everyone was still sleeping.

When Atsuki stepped out into the snow, his footprints were the first ones in it. It was perfectly smooth and white as far as he could see, like a sheet tightly spread out across the ground. The air felt cold and dry, and the sky was clear. The sun was just starting to rise. It was a perfect morning to take pictures.

Atsuki took pictures of the ice hanging from the powerlines and the streaks of gold from the sunrise reaching out from behind the snow-coated trees. He took a wide angle shot of the snow-covered residence hall with the colorful sunrise in the background. He took pictures of some of the bulletin boards around campus, covered in frosty missing pet papers and ads for apartments for rent.

He found tiny animal footprints in the snow near a light post and knelt down to take a few close up pictures of them. He only took one before he heard a voice behind him.

“Hey Saijo, what are you doing up so early?”

Atsuki turned and saw Hibiki standing by him with a sketchbook. He had a little bit of snow dusted in his hair, but he was smiling.

“Why are you up so early?” Atsuki asked, turning back to take a couple more pictures. He turned off his camera and put it away in his camera bag, then stood to face Hibiki.

Hibiki shrugged. “I wanted to see the sunrise. And the snow,” he answered. Hibiki was a printmaking major. Atsuki knew him best as Ryo’s best friend from high school. He knew Hibiki had gone to college overseas to study math, but he wasn’t sure what made him decide to transfer back home to an art school.

“Oh,” Atsuki answered, looking off at the sunrise again. Most of the color was gone from the sky at that point. There was nothing but the sun and the faint orange glow around it now.

Hibiki stuffed his sketchbook in his bag and smiled at Atsuki again. “Hey, want to go get breakfast together? I know a pretty good place in town,” he offered, “I’ll pay.”

Atsuki was never the type of person to turn down free food, especially when he was hungry. He didn’t even realize how hungry he was until Hibiki mentioned food, and now he was starving. “…Okay,” he finally agreed.

The school buses weren’t running because of the weather, so they had to walk into town. It was only ten blocks so it was a doable distance away. The ice was a bit of a problem, and Atsuki slipped once on it and had to reach out and grab Hibiki’s arm to steady himself. Hibiki just smiled and told him, “Be careful, Saijo.”

The restaurant Hibiki picked was a small family-owned business squeezed between a law office and a hair salon. It had an open sign in the window that was handwritten with marker on a whiteboard. The front door had a set of sleigh bells tied to it with red string.

Inside, the restaurant was cozy, just as small as it looked from the outside. Immediately someone greeted them and led them to a table by the window. They were the only guests in the entire restaurant that early.

“So, what are you hungry for, Saijo?” Hibiki asked, looking out the window at a snow plow driving by instead of at the laminated menus they’d be given.

After flipping through the whole menu, Atsuki paused on the French toast section. “Maybe the strawberries and cream French toast,” he answered. Two pieces of French toast stuffed with cream cheese and strawberries and topped with more strawberries… that sounded delicious.

Their waitress was a vaguely familiar girl who probably went to their school, and she brought them both coffee and glasses of water right away. Atsuki poured half the sugar packets on their table into his coffee, but Hibiki used a much more reasonable amount. When she returned for their orders, Atsuki got the French toast and Hibiki got some sort of combination meal with scrambled eggs and hashed browns and bacon.

After she left, awkward silence started. Atsuki didn’t know what to say so he stared out the window. Another snow plow drove by, but there weren’t many cars on the streets.

“You’re a photography major, right?” Hibiki asked, folding his arms on the table and looking over at Atsuki. “Why photography?”

Atsuki glanced back at Hibiki and shrugged. “I just like it. Why printmaking?”

That made Hibiki smile again. “Same for me, I guess. It’s fun, and it’s different.”

They fell into silence again before Hibiki spoke again. “You’re friends with Ryo too, right?”

After taking a sip of his ridiculously sugary coffee, Atsuki replied, “Yeah. We had English Composition together.” He got paired with Ryo on most of their assignments in that class so it was easy for them to become friends. Being a creative writing major made Ryo extra helpful when it came to homework.

“We were best friends in high school,” Hibiki added, staring down into his coffee. “I guess we drifted apart a bit while I was overseas. But we’re definitely still friends.”

“Yeah,” Atsuki responded, not sure what else to say.

Their waitress returned with their food, cutting the silence that followed off before it could get awkard. Both of them focused on their food for a bit, and the only noise in the background was the sleigh bells jingling when another customer walked in.

“I think we should hang out more,” Hibiki said eventually between bites, “You seem like an interesting guy. I’d love to talk to you more sometime.”

Atsuki glanced up at Hibiki from his plate and thought for a moment before replying. “Sure, okay,” he said and went right back to his French toast.

“You and Ryo have lunch together sometimes, right?” Hibiki  continued, “Maybe I’ll join you some time.”

After they finished eating, Hibiki left for his dorm and Atsuki left for his own. When he got back Shinji was still sleeping, sprawled across his bed, half hanging off of it. The next day when Atsuki got lunch, he ate it with Ryo and Hibiki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession: I didn't proofread this because I was afraid I'd hate it when I re-read it.  
> I've been in a long med-related writing slump so this is a bit of a miracle.  
> I'm hoping this is a sign I'm out of it and I can add more soon.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	3. Finals Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atsuki, Mika and Akira wait a little too long to prepare for their finals.

Finals week came up more quickly than any of them were really prepared for. Atsuki and Mika both had final projects to do for their major, so they decided to work on them together during the few days before the due date and study for their math and history finals with Akira the night before them, all night long.

Atsuki’s final photography project was a photo essay of students sleeping in strange places during finals week. He got a picture in the morning of Shinji fast asleep, his face on top of his keyboard and his laptop’s screensaver still swirling across the screen. At lunch he took a picture of Yayoi sleeping, resting her head on Rui’s shoulder while Rui had her arm around her. He found Akira a little later that day, sleeping under a table in the library with a stack of books as his pillow. He took another picture of some people he didn’t know, sleeping in the stairwell of his dorm.

Mika still hadn’t picked a project by the time finals week rolled around. Atsuki and Rui and Yayoi tossed out ideas for her at lunch. Yayoi suggested she take pictures of the Latte art a girl at the Starbucks in the student union building made. Rui suggested taking pictures of interesting outfits people wore on campus. Mika considered every idea they gave her, and eventually decided on her own idea: a series of photos of journalists at work in town. She decided to swing by the student newspaper’s office to take some pictures of her fellow staffers, and also planned to go to the city paper and the city news station to take photos as well. She even said she’d take one of her journalistic rival Kyosuke Kagami if she ran into him over the next few days.

Mika went that afternoon to take her pictures and skipped the last class of the day she had with Atsuki. He’d heard from Rui that in high school she skipped class all the time, so he wasn’t surprised at all. When she was back on campus, Mika tracked Atsuki down immediately and asked him to help her pick the best photos to submit for the project. Atsuki noticed she had a disproportionate amount of photos of Kyosuke, looking pretty unhappy at having his picture taken.

That next morning Atsuki, Mika and Akira all had two finals in two of their general education classes. The night before around 7pm, they all got together in a study room Atsuki had reserved in the library to study as much as they could as thoroughly as they could.

They started by re-doing math problems they had on previous homework assignments, then specifically went over every formula that was on the study guide until each of them had it memorized. Then they worked on actually applying those formulas by doing problems from the tests they had involving them. By the time they finished math, it was past midnight. They still had history to study, so they all took a break to get coffee and then kept going.

They made dozens and dozens of flashcards with the names of dead politicians on them. They reviewed dates over and over again and wrote them out repeatedly to burn them into their minds. They matched the names with the dates, and then worked to match the dates and names to places. By 6am, they’d consumed a worrying amount of coffee, but had studied so thoroughly they couldn’t have possibly studied any better.

Their first final was at 8am, so they all managed to get a little bit of sleep in before it. The three of them sat outside the classroom it was in and all fell asleep on each other, Mika leaning on Akira and Akira leaning on Atsuki. When it started, they could barely wake themselves up. The effects of the all-nighter were already starting to hit them.

The history final was at 10, so the three of them had to leave for it directly after the math one. Atsuki managed to stay awake through it and he remembered every answer, but when he looked over to see how Akira and Mika were doing, he saw both of them with their heads down on their desks, crashed from their caffeine high and sleeping like rocks.

Waiting until the last minute and cramming all night seemed to end up backfiring on them. Next semester, Atsuki made a mental note to make sure Akira and Mika started studying much earlier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't figure out anywhere if art schools have general education requirements... I'm in an arts major but at a regular uni, so I know I have them but I don't know if full art schools do. Sorry for any mistakes regarding that. OTL


End file.
